Job interview questions can be tough and what can be harder is the final question the employer will ask you, “Is there anything you want to know about me or the company?” This may sound surprisingly an informal question to you and most of the interviewees simply shrug to answer the question. This perhaps had happened to you and sad to say – you may have had answered the first few questions intelligently but by ignoring the last question you had put yourself in to the graveyard. Why? The employer doesn’t want to hire people who just work to get their salaries at every pay day.

So, you had come to a realization of the reason why until today you didn’t get any of the past job interviews where you had been shortlisted. This article can help you get better next time. Before I proceed, I would like to stress very important information: “Most of the HR interviewers prepare questions prior to your scheduled interviews. Most of these are open questions which cannot be answered by ‘yes’ or ‘no’ that is to encourage you to talk. These often begin with the ‘why’, ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘how’. Thus, you have to prepare yourself to talk more.”

Here are the top 5 tough questions the HR interviewer asks on the job interview and how to answer them the appropriate way.

Q1. Tell me something about your self.

Yeah. There’s a lot to tell and you may be find it hard to choose what information you should give. The hint is this is the opportunity where you can sell yourself to the company. Think of a way to describe yourself such as what sort of person are you, telling stories how you end up to a company to another company describing your strength rather than your weaknesses. Examples could be if you are applying for marketing job: “I started early at life and my first job was a secretariat at one government agency. The salary is not sufficient with having three children thus I have to earn extra by selling houses, some consumer goods and electronics. I excelled at this field and really enjoyed the challenges. Then I applied for marketing job at this company where I was able to bring $10 million gross sales…”

Q2. Why do you think we should hire you over one of the other candidates?

Didn’t know this coming? Yeah. Really a tough one because you haven’t met any of the other candidates the interviewer is talking about. The question is “Do you need to say something negative about them and how?” Nice strategy BUT that is not what they wanted to hear from you. The best answer you should provide is for you to open your door to your unique qualities or expertise that may or not indicated on your resume. You have to precisely state your skills and qualities and differentiate yourself to the other candidates to show that you have everything that the company looks for. The interviewer wants to know also if you had made some research about their company and read the description of the job you are applying for.

Q3. What is your greatest weakness?

This may caught you off-guard. What does the employer mean by asking this question? Of course, there is not a single company who will hire you if you are going to enumerate your weaknesses. The hint is you are not going to fall to this entrapment. Don’t admit any. If you do, make them sound like your strength such as, “I often get attached to my work and stayed late at the office to finish something…” No employer can refuse to this kind of weakness.

Q4. Why did you leave your last job?

Expressing your strong disapproval from your previous employer or coworkers may be your option but it is not a good idea. No company will hire you if you did that because this will only show that you have a difficulty in dealing and getting along with other people. It is best to provide positive reasons such as looking for career advancement, more opportunities or you have to study or you want a role with more responsibilities.

Q5. If I were to ask your previous employers to describe you, what would they say?

The interviewer may ask you this question even you already written your previous employers as your reference. The company wants to know how you perceive other think of you and how well you performed your jobs. The hint to the question is to talk about your strengths in your answer and talk more of skills you have that you think will be useful on the job you are applying for.

The only reason why you got invited to a job interview is the company wants to know you more and assess if you are the best candidate who fit for the job. Perhaps you are one among the 5 who got shortlisted and you will not have a clue what the other candidates’ CVs look like. The key to land to this job during this interview is to quickly build rapport and to gain their trust that you are perfectly suited to this work.

Before the schedule, prepare yourself to answer all the possible questions including the tough and uncomfortable ones. Learn to be resonance in describing your market value, skills and other benefits you can offer when answering them and talk more about your accomplishments. This is going to separate you as winner from the runner-ups.

I also suggest to take question #1 by heart … how you answer this will have an impact on the succeeding questions! If one can impress an interviewer with your confidence, pronunciation and diction and how witty and smart you are in answering whatever question given to you – then congratulations! great post.. first time to read tips like this in fbw! 🙂

wow!! i haven’t been to a lot of job or anything and i already forgot all the questions they’d give me last time. though i was just so lucky to my first job and last job i was in before i gave birth and focusing on my family now. this is another very useful tips to everyone! xx

One of the trickiest interview question I’ve heard from a friend was “Why do you think we should NOT hire you?” But a friend of mine has a great answer on it. She answered that she can be a big threat to other employees because she’s good and maybe one day, maagawan nya ng pwesto yung ibang tao. hahaha. Kabog!

I was asked that final question at my last job interview (which I got 15 years ago). I haven’t come to terms analyzing my own answer yet but so glad it’s over. These interview questions play a lot of psychology in the hiring process.

hahaha, typical interview questions and you’re right, they are hard to answer because they are so general. When I am part of an interview panel, I try to avoid these questions and be more specific…but when I get tired, I usually let other members of the panel ask the questions…and these are typical of what they ask.

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Great tips posted here, Ron. Answering these questions are really difficult because it causes you to walk in this area where there is a very fine line between impressing the potential employer and sounding too arrogant. You’re suggestions here will definitely help job seekers from crossing that line.

I don’t think those are the toughest in all the potential questions to be asked (and I don’t even think these are tough). I have experienced being interviewed by CIOs, presidents and VPs in different companies in both SG and PH. I can say that the toughest one has to do not with telling about the self but in those related to the actual business or role. Example is giving out scenarios and having to quickly think of the best answer to solve the problem.

Tough and tricky. I did not get such questions in my previous interviews but at some point, there are people whose job is to fabricate questions like these to confuse people, lol. The good thing is, there are corresponding workarounds.

Any company will hire the one with the BEST answers of course but the answers are just the instruments. The personality of the applicant holds the key to land the position. These questions are so familiar that any job seeker encounters but the way to respond makes the difference.

I like the part of the interview where you really have to defend yourself in a way that will impress the interviewer. The most important thing to note is to make an impression that they could never find anyone better than YOU 🙂